Where Even Paper Can Flourish
by skidtick
Summary: Spoilers for 508-509. Here they stand, staring at each other through the torrent of rain... and all he can wonder is "How had it all come down to this?" Madara. Konan.


**A/N **

**Inspired by Naruto 509. Can either be romantic or platonic as it is open to interpretation.**

**Where Even Paper Can Flourish**

"Hah… you bare your fangs at me but you still wear that cloak. Perhaps you miss Akatsuki?"

He wanted to believe that. That she really did miss Akatsuki. That there really was loyalty in this miserable world, corrupted by agendas and hidden conspiracies.

There really was no true devotion in the world. And children these days were just so damn unappreciative.

Konan had seemed one so pure that if there was anybody out there who did not have secrets, he would have believed it to be her. Somewhere in his mind, he probably wanted it to be her. And now, here they were, standing on raging waters, drenched in rain as he prepared to wrest a most desirable secret from her – the Rinnegan's location.

He was wrong about her, disappointed in her. She betrayed him… or not. Her loyalty was never given to him in the first place after all.

That girl wasn't his pawn, she never was… despite what she wanted to believe. She actually wanted to believe he influenced her decisions. But she was never his. If there was anybody who influenced her, it would have been Nagato. And while Madara controlled Nagato… he did not control her… never her.

He had tried of course. Lied through his mask, coaxed her, threatened her but either she was too stupid or too innocent to truly pick up on the double meaning of his words. Too foolish to be manipulated. Too wise to be manipulated. And Madara did not like such little girls who refused to play…

Madara took care of his possessions but she was never his to take care of.

So now, as they stood facing each other, he had the urge to clip those angel wings of hers off and watch them burn. Indeed, he knew thousands of fire jutsus that could set them alight despite what seemed to be a remarkable resistance to fire. But he could do it, he was sure he could even if that old pervert Jiraiya couldn't. To watch those angel wings burn…

Because if she couldn't be his angel he didn't see why that self-proclaimed "God" got to have her.

Blood feathers… for wings to grow on birds (and this he knew from his experience in falconry), feathers needed blood. The new feathers as they sprouted off from clipped wings, or from moulting, contained blood within their shafts. A small wrong slip and the bird could be bleeding to death. For Konan to reach this level of skill, she must have spilled a great deal of blood with those magnificent wings of hers. And he was just so incredibly gullible to think that she would be pure and good. Of all the people, he thought it would finally be her to prove that there really was loyalty in the world. How stupid could he get?

Didn't Konan know? Without him, her God would be nothing! Absolutely nothing! And she stood there, that foolish little girl facing him down with that blank expression on her face.

And it was truly a remarkable face.

To the Sharingan eye, nothing was attractive. Sickly yellow pores, dry rough knobbed skin, oozing disgusting sickly oil from the almost invisible orifices of the face… everyone had that and everyone looked like the dry dying _rotting_ carcass of a serpent in the desert sun. It was a miracle those of the Uchiha clan got married at all. But Konan had no such organic skin and was instead made of paper. She was perfect. Her skin was a smooth paleness, as delicate and as breathtaking as the most exquisite, expensive paper can be. She was beautiful even to his Sharingan.

He remembered his wife, an Uchiha like him... a cousin, quite close. Long dead… in those days, every clan leader was married. Fathering the future generations after all, was just another expectation of him as Uchiha leader. Madara remembered the way his wife always turned her face away from him whether it be from his casual glance or his stare from the heat of gasped out passion. She was ashamed… she knew what imperfections his permanently activated Sharingan could see.

And she was right, she was hideous. Never mind that those without the Eye saw her as the most beautiful kunoichi in the world.

She was hideous.

Konan stood there staring at him, emotions cracking through her normally stoic face. She did nothing to avoid his gaze. As well she shouldn't. What was there to hide but her porcelain, perfectly pristine skin?

Madara would probably have not been so fascinated by the kunoichi if she had not been forbidden. Nagato practically allowed him to run Akatsuki. He was no true leader like Yahiko was… Nagato was content to take orders. Even when Madara purposely made decisions designed to annoy him, he said nothing. But the one moment Madara reached out and _accidentally_ brushed Konan's shoulder, he had found himself being assaulted by Deva Path. From that time onwards, Nagato always stood between him and Konan, as if she were a higher being he was not allowed to touch and corrupt. But that just made her all the more desirable.

He would have liked her paper to be weak in rain. To see the water slowly dissolve into the tiny paper fibres too small for him to see. To watch the material curl off, disappear until all that was left was her skull. It would be a beautiful skull, pure white, almost translucent of an avian nature.

Konan now was as emotional as he ever saw her. She was actually angry and he would take advantage of that.

"You were just a foolish little girl…" he taunted her, further adding another insult to his previous address of her as "my dear".

He took delight in her outraged face, cold paper peeling back to show the real emotionally fragile girl underneath.

Why delight though?

He could have lied to her. Genjutsu her to make her more docile… bring her back to the Akatsuki like he would have done to any other member who betrayed him. And here he was, taunting her onwards. There were alternatives of course. He could kill her, get Kabuto to resurrect her… control her… But the thought of his filthy snake hands touching her was quite unthinkable. No need to ruin the ethereal purity she carried around and a dead Konan would have lost the one thing that fascinated him.

Madara broke out of his inner thoughts for a moment to grasp a charging Konan by the neck. He prepared to absorb her, only to find that she had mixed in explosive tags with her paper in a kamikaze attempt designed to end both of them.

There was an explosion.

Stupid girl…

Though he was flattered that she believed his life important enough to destroy her own. Flattered that she believed his life at least equal to her own… Incredibly and pathetically flattered.

Pity her suicidal technique failed though. Didn't she learn from Deidara such things just don't work out?

He ended up saving her anyway.

It was probably involuntary. He absorbed most of the explosion to another dimension in order to save himself and so saving her in the process as well.

It could have been voluntary. He needed to know where the Rinnegan was and a dead Konan wouldn't be a very useful Konan.

But he admitted to himself that he would have liked to have seen her not blown up in bits. He would have liked to see perhaps the glimmer of gratitude in her face… he had just saved her life. Or maybe he would have finally liked to see Konan smile at the fact that she was still alive.

Hell, he would settle for just a look of relief on her face as she found herself mostly intact.

But Madara knew that both of them found happiness in different things and Konan would never smile again for her saved life. Her life had been saved once before, and it was not a pleasant time. She lost that boy called Yahiko then. Yahiko… another pawn of his.

How was it that though his pawns received her heartfelt sorrow and happiness… he, Madara Uchiha, the better of all of them, was given none of it but her rather shallow fury? He wanted her deeper feelings… and all he received was superficial second-hand crap.

She was breathing heavily now. Her face wet with streaks of water and maybe tears. Her makeup must be water proof or something. It didn't run and her upper eyelids remained that deep blue.

There was even the faintest trace of blush from exertion; her breath came out in white puffs from her swollen lips. Her chest and shoulders rose and fell with each heavy breath, paper fluttering wildly around her. And while she did not have the positive emotion he so wished to see on her face, she gave him his favourite expression: Wild desperation tinged with hopelessness

It was just so fucking beautiful.

But the strength in her eyes soon returned, and he cursed her for having such excellent emotional control. He would have liked to stare at her longer but, she then tried to kill him. Her hands spread out in front of her and she changed the waters into a sea of paper that opened out into a deep abyss below him.

She said he was darkness, where her beloved flowers could only wither and die. A world without light.

He scoffed.

What a liar that girl was.

Only living flowers flourished in the sun.

Her dead white paper flowers on the other hand… would only ever bloom their brightest in the dark.

**X.X.X**

**A/N**

**Hope you enjoyed that… … and reviews are very much appreciated!**


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